Building RBA for Provari

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Paul.K

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You dont have to. I ran mine aroundm 1.8 or so at first. If your chasing taste and clouds, the lower the better (to me). If your at 1.0 Ohm, the Provari will not fire.

It actually vapes fine at 1.5 or 1.8 or whatever.

STORY TIME......

But I hang around a vape shop on Saturdays and Thursdays and they have workshops and we help each other out and visit and all..... ANYWAY....most of them are mechanical guys and gals and they go sub ohm vaping blowing HUGE clouds. They saw my kayfun and vaped it and loved it,,,then one dude says.. "hey, lets see how low we can go".

We found out ....we got to 1.2, then a 1.1 and the taste and vape was like BAZINGA !! WOW. We passed it around like we were Indians at a Pow wow for about 45 minutes.

At this point, some die hard Mech guys were actually interested in getting a Provari and a Kayfun clone or original....just to have them for the sheer convenience of the huge tank along with the way it vaped and tasted.

And this is why I love the KF's with my Provari (and Semovar). Taste and vapor production is very good and I don't have to rebuild but once a week. I love my mech's with rda's but the builds and batteries just don't last.
 

Ref Minor

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I winged it earlier today based on seeing a video a couple of months ago that looked easy. Wrapped the silica into a figure 8 with a straight thread of silica poking out of each side then hand wrapped the wire round 5 times, pulled on the straight end of the silica to reduce the figure 8 to a size that would fit into the chimney base and clipped the ends off the wire and the straight ends of the silica and boom, 1.9ohm coil that vapes very nicely. All of 5 mins work.
 

SonHouse

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1. I don't have 28 gauge Kanthal as he used in the video, I have 32 gauge Kanthal. Can I just wrap it a few more times as a coil if I measure the proper length based on the ohms chart?

2. I don't own a resistance meter. Can I wrap it, and use the Provari to dry fire and test the ohms, or is there a reason I MUST have a resistance meter? I saw him say on the video not to fire the cotton without saturating it, so I won't do that... but before I try wrapping, would like to know the answer to these 2 questions, and tips if any.

Thanks:).
You use fewer wraps with 32 gauge than 28. Think of it like a water hose, if you try moving the same amount of water through a 1/4" line as through a fire hose there will be more resistance with the 1/4" hose. As far as replacing on with another? Sure, the 32 gauge will heat up faster and there won't be as much coil in contact with the juice so it'll behave a bit different but either one might be to your preference.

No dry firing with cotton, only with non flammables like steel mesh, silica, etc. but yes, the ProVari is a wonderful ohm meter to use.
 

glassgal

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Ok, quick review.

I should:
1. cut the 32 ga Kanthal wire according to the ohms I want (in this case 1" of 32ga Kathal for 1.2 ohms right?)
2. wrap coil around little screwdriver because it looks about the right size of roughl 2 mm (does the size of the coil matter?)
3. Make sure it's not touching itself anywhere (so why does Pbusardo squish the coil and not separate them?)
4. thread the cotton ball through saturate and vape?

I just tried to turn the included coil around to point towards the juice channels and it shorted. I pushed it up again a bit higher and think I separated them ok. It's reading 2.0 on the Provari for AO... but the vape is not amazing. This could be because I realized I didn't clean it, and then soaked it in hot water and some vinegar for a few minutes... I may be vaping some machine oil:).
 

SonHouse

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Ok, quick review.

I should:
1. cut the 32 ga Kanthal wire according to the ohms I want (in this case 1" of 32ga Kathal for 1.2 ohms right?)
2. wrap coil around little screwdriver because it looks about the right size of roughl 2 mm (does the size of the coil matter?)
3. Make sure it's not touching itself anywhere (so why does Pbusardo squish the coil and not separate them?)
4. thread the cotton ball through saturate and vape?

I just tried to turn the included coil around to point towards the juice channels and it shorted. I pushed it up again a bit higher and think I separated them ok. It's reading 2.0 on the Provari for AO... but the vape is not amazing. This could be because I realized I didn't clean it, and then soaked it in hot water and some vinegar for a few minutes... I may be vaping some machine oil:).
1. Yes
2. Yes, but not for you tonight, that's in the category of "Points for style." The screwdriver is an excellent choice.
3. It's called a micro coil and is the trendy thing. There's a thread around here with about 1000 pages where you can read about it. Not required for your first coil.
4. Bingo!
 

Paul.K

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Ok, quick review.

I should:
1. cut the 32 ga Kanthal wire according to the ohms I want (in this case 1" of 32ga Kathal for 1.2 ohms right?) Yes cut to length the desired resistance.
2. wrap coil around little screwdriver because it looks about the right size of roughl 2 mm (does the size of the coil matter?)Yes the diameter matters as the diameter increases it requires longer length for the same wrap.
3. Make sure it's not touching itself anywhere (so why does Pbusardo squish the coil and not separate them?)He must be building microcoils (they need to touch) where as standard coils are used seperated.
4. thread the cotton ball through saturate and vape? Yes. Saturate, test fire, finish assembly, fill juice, vape on

This could be because I realized I didn't clean it, and then soaked it in hot water and some vinegar for a few minutes... I may be vaping some machine oil:).

When I clean and re-wick I usually take all parts apart and soak in warm soapy water for about 10 minutes then rinse in warm water. If I'm changing juices I follow that up with some boiling water rinse for about 30 minutes.
 

SonHouse

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Ok... microcoils vs standard coils... how is this different? So if 2 coils touch and the other 6 don't, that's bad? I should have ALL of them touch or NONE of them touch? Why?

A "Standard" coil conducts electricity through the length of the wire in a linear fashion because no coils touch. It's easiest for the electrons to follow the metal wire. If two of those coils touch, the electricity will take the easiest path and no current will flow through the loop of the one closest to the positive pole. The electrons take the short cut and you lose current and heating in the 360 degrees between where the coils first touch and the coiled wire comes back into contact with itself. With a micro coil, you touch all coils together with the idea that metal conducts heat so you get the most heated metal in contact with the juice leading to evaporating more. You also have a lot more coil so even that short cut the electrons are taking is the resistance you desire.
 
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Paul.K

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The basic premise is that you want very even heating of your wick. Standard build or separated coils only heat the parts that they touch. It will be very hot where it touches the wicking materiel. Not ideal for cotton btw. Micro coils has a much bigger footprint for heating the wicking materiel as it is touching a lot of it. You can thus push more power and vaporize much more of the juice at the same time without burning the wick or the juice for that matter. IMO standard coils are better suited for silica as they can withstand the higher temperature at the contact point.
 

glassgal

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I did it!!! WOWOWOWOOWW!!! I'm in awe!!!

First let me say that my previously delicious juice is actually very disgusting concentrated to this degree. o_O

But I had NO IDEA you could get this much concentrated flavor out of juice! My wire is 1.6 whatevers on the AO setting. At 4.8 v I'm getting a nic headache after 2 hits. At 5.1v, the Provari errors out. At 4.0, I get insane flavor, tho not insane vapor (which is great). It's comfortably flavorful all the way down to 3.2v. I have no idea why it works or how it works, tho I'm getting warmer... I feel like I grew up in a cave and someone gave me a lighter. The amazing thing is, it never tasted burnt, all the way up to error... why?

I only managed 3 1/2 coils in there and that has to be one of the most aggravating things I've ever done (no way to heat the wire with no butane, it kept boinging back!!!)... but the coils were perfect and all 3 heat exactly the same red, so I think I got the flow correct. I have NO idea if I want to do this again, but I can definitely see why everyone else does it!!

How often do you have to rewrap these??? (please don't tell me every day).
 

glassgal

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Oh. Pix!! My first ever coil!!!

IMG_20131210_012147_zps1a6ekefs.jpg
 

SonHouse

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Nice! No, coils will last a while. I always lose mine when I decide to rebuild not because they're bad. Every tank or so, toss that pennies worth of cotton and put more in. And, yes, the flavor takes some getting used to. But different RBA's will have different combinations of pluses and minuses so try them all! :D
 

glassgal

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Ok... can you guys explain again how the volts and ohms work? Not the electrical part, don't care, I want to know the relationship... like if I build a lower ohm, I need to set volts lower too? What is the correlation between them?

That is, my current coil = 1.6, and I set it to 4.0 to get the ideal vape for me (because everyone's different). So if I build a 1.8 ohm coil next, what do I set it to to get the APPROXIMATE vape, 4.2 or 3.8? Which direction does the volt go to stay constant from a different ohm?
 

Paul.K

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Ok... can you guys explain again how the volts and ohms work? Not the electrical part, don't care, I want to know the relationship... like if I build a lower ohm, I need to set volts lower too? What is the correlation between them?

That is, my current coil = 1.6, and I set it to 4.0 to get the ideal vape for me (because everyone's different). So if I build a 1.8 ohm coil next, what do I set it to to get the APPROXIMATE vape, 4.2 or 3.8? Which direction does the volt go to stay constant from a different ohm?

Bookmark this link, post #2. Looking at that chart you are vaping around 9-10 watts and that is where your preference is. When you change ohms then adjust the volts according to that chart. Id you go to 1.8 ohms then 4.2v shoud give you similar results.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...6-there-chart-voltage-resistance-wattage.html
 
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